


Off-World

by Zoombow



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: (maybe? i don’t know how to tag well im so sorry), Description of Injuries, Emotional Constipation, M/M, More tags to be added, a Great Escape from any possible punishment, megatron and starscream go on an emotionally constipated space adventure, mild violence, more characters to be added probably, slow burn but not quite, which soon turns gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoombow/pseuds/Zoombow
Summary: Megatron was forced to surrender the Decepticons, and they were taken into custody. It was a bitter and unwanted fate. If he could just break out of prison and find a way to free his faction, he would.Well, there happened to be a rather pissed off seeker at his side.But the two of them didn’t really plan anything past the whole “breaking out of prison” thing, did they?
Relationships: Megatron/Starscream (Transformers)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Off-World

Six days. They’ve been floating through space in a cruddy little spaceship for six damn days. It was just the two of them, which was rather unfortunate given how much they completely detested each other. Megatron would love to blame the whole situation on Starscream. Truly, he would. Sadly, he happened to be the idiot who came up with the whole scheme to run away from the authorities.

Megatron took a sip of the little bit of energon he allowed himself to have as he watched Starscream mess with the main console of the ship. There was a very small supply of energon on the ship because it was only meant for a short trip. Listening to Starscream’s claws clack loudly and endlessly on the keys of the console, he recounted the events of the past few days...

~

They were on Cybertron for the first time in years. None of them were happy about it.

It was one of the few times that Starscream had nothing to say, Megatron noted. He must have used up all of the snark that he had stocked up in himself. Now, the seeker was standing uncomfortably straight with an extremely angered expression on his face. It was understandable.

The entire Decepticon army _was_ in custody, after all.

The entire situation made Megatron seethe with anger as he stood, servos in thick, unbreakable handcuffs. He’d been forced to submit and surrender. After four million years of war and bloodshed, he had to yield entirely. It made him feel weak. Useless. Futile. He only surrendered when practically everyone was screaming at him to. Not just Optimus Prime. Soundwave, his most loyal soldier and friend, was the one to tell him that their hope of winning was practically gone. Shockwave did too, along with the whispers of many other soldiers. Their hope was lost because they lacked the resources to survive, much less to fight. Their numbers were diminishing quickly. They were at their worst state that they ever had been, and if they went any further, they would all die. Megatron was forced to see that. He wished he had been just a little more stubborn.

It wasn’t fair that he was the one in chains when the Autobots were just as bad of war criminals as the Decepticons were. They weren’t innocent. Yet all they had to do was flutter their pretty blue optics at everyone they met, and they gained trust.

Starscream stood at his right. He was in the same strong handcuffs that Megatron was, and his wings were clamped. Megatron had never seen him look so positively pissed off. Soundwave stood at his left, also cuffed. He stood straight, shoulders broadened, as though he were confident. Though, behind the mask, Megatron knew he was completely and utterly devastated. The Autobots wouldn’t know that, though. Soundwave was presenting himself as cool and unfazed purely to anger them. It was a little admirable.

Megatron felt guilty. Angry. Depressed. Every possible negative emotion swarmed his processor. He felt like he had let everyone down. And he did, really.

He knew damn well that he deserved this, but it just wasn’t equal if the Autobots weren’t receiving the same punishment. In fact, the Autobots had the audacity to put themselves in charge of Cybertron’s decisions for the time being. They quickly elected Optimus Prime to be their leader. When he was elected, Megatron saw it on his face. The Prime clearly didn’t want to be temporarily in charge of all of Cybertron. It was also quite clear that it probably wouldn’t be a temporary state. Everyone loved him too fragging much to want anyone else as a leader.

Megatron wanted to say something. _Do_ something. If he broke out of his cuffs, which he knew he had the strength to do, he would immediately be shot down. There were four guards guarding the three of them, each one armed with a blaster. They’d taken away his fusion canon when he’d been detained, so the only defense Megatron had was his fists. 

They were in a holding cell at the moment. Their cell was far off from the others, sitting on a different, lower floor. They were in the only cell in the room. He assumed that there would be some kind of trial for his crimes soon. The guards hadn’t been changed once in the three days that they’d been in the cell. They didn’t even refuel.

Megatron took a quick glance at Starscream at the remembrance of his fusion canon. That was one of the few gifts that his fickle second had given him. Now it was Primus-knows-where.

The guards were talking. They were distracted. But if he broke out right then and there, they would obviously notice and either kill him immediately or detain him again. Megatron looked at Starscream once more, trying to think of some way to break out—

“Quit looking at me so much, will you?” Starscream spoke, not making eye contact. He stared ahead with the same furious face, emanating hate. His voice sounded hoarse, as though he were genuinely ready to break into tears and cry at any moment.

Megatron did as he was told and stared ahead.

There were places where he could sit down. Those places being metal slabs for beds and waste buckets. Soundwave would sit down every once in a while. He even slept for ten minutes straight at one point. He was obviously very tired of just about everything.

Other than Soundwave’s ten minute nap, none of them had slept or eaten the whole time.

The guards were still chatting away. They were saying something about getting a message to move someone to a different cell. By the looks of their faces, it didn’t seem like they wanted to. Orders were orders though, it seemed. Three of the four guards moved.

Moved towards _their_ cell. What?

They entered a code to open the cell’s bars only partway. The three guards went in with disgusted expressions on their faces as they walked towards Soundwave. Soundwave? They were moving him? Megatron caught Starscream staring at the guard entering the code, as though he were trying to memorize something he couldn’t even see.

They mumbled something about plans to escape, and how they weren’t able to disable Soundwave’s telepathy so he could easily send Megatron plans to break out through his mind.

Hey that was an idea! Oh, but it was too late now that Soundwave was already getting shoved into the elevator that led to their cell.

Megatron heard a small conversation between the three guards before the elevator doors closed.

“Shouldn’t we separate Megs and Screamer too, then?” one of them asked. They were orange, and they didn’t pull it off. The nicknames irritated Megatron. He knew some Decepticons called him that when they thought he wasn’t listening, but they were Decepticons. The names didn’t sound right on Autobot tongue.

“Please,” another one said cockily. They were red. Unlike their orange friend, they did indeed look good in the color. “They’d sooner tear each other apart than work together.”

Out of the corner of his optic, Megatron saw Starscream’s mouth twitch at that statement. A smile.

Before the elevator doors closed, Megatron made eye contact with Soundwave, who was much taller than the guards, standing a head taller than them. He looked hopeless yet hopeful at the same time. Almost as though he thought, despite everything, they would find a way out.

That look haunted him.

The single guard that was left in charge of their cell had already closed the bars and was now standing alone in front of them. He looked a little more anxious without his buddies next to him.

This was probably their once chance to get out, be it slim. It disappointed Megatron to no end that he couldn’t escape with Soundwave in tow. If they did manage to break out and survive, he would have to come back for him. He just had to.

Starscream was looking at him now. Expectantly. He couldn’t break out of his handcuffs, but Megatron had the strength to. And with that strength, he could then break Starscream’s chains.

Their chance of getting caught was still very much there and prominent. They could die. Everything that they had gone through could be turned into nothing from a single shot from the blaster of a nameless Autobot. The Autobots would be victorious and Megatron would leave the Decepticons completely sparkbroken...

Oh, to hell with it all!

With all the strength he could muster, Megatron ripped the handcuffs in two, leaving two blocky weights around his wrists. The guard immediately noticed and turned around. He raised his gun and moved his hand up to their comm.

Megatron wasn’t having any of that, and reached through the electric jail bars to grab the back of the mech’s helm and slam it into his knee. The bars stung horribly, but the pain felt good. It meant they were getting somewhere.

The guard was still alive, now on the floor holding his destroyed face in agony. Energon leaked from just about everywhere from the mech’s cracked faceplates. He weakly lifted his weapon and aimed it at him. Megatron slammed his pede down on the pained guard’s forearm and bent down to rip the gun out of his servo.

He aimed it at the guard’s spark. The mech only just managed to tap his comm. before Megatron shot him, extinguishing his life.

He looked at Starscream, who in turn held his cuffed hands up to him with a smarmy grin on his face. Megatron gladly grabbed his wrists and wrenched them free. He let go of his arms. Starscream smiled wider at his now separated servos and turned around to show his clamped wings.

“If you could?” he asked in a light, joking voice.

“Gladly,” Megatron replied. He aimed the stolen blaster at the part that connected the wing clamp and shot. Starscream flinched and hissed. The shot must’ve also hit his back by accident. Megatron rolled his optics. “Get over yourself.”

“You couldn’t have just ripped them apart?” Starscream turned around with a vaguely vexed expression.

“I wouldn’t want to risk denting your wings,” Megatron said. “We are not going to argue right now, you hear me?”

“Fine, fine!” Starscream said in an exasperated tone, as though they were just fighting over paperwork and not trying to break out of a high-security prison. He started walking over to the far right side of their cell, stepping over the dead guard like it was nothing.

“What are you doing?” Megatron inquired.

“Entering the code, dumbaft,” Starscream answered with an unnecessary insult. He sneaked his arm through the bars and moved his hand to face the keypad. The electric bars shocked the handcuff that was still around his wrist, but nothing more. After a few bits of trial and error, he managed to get it open. A section of the bars went away, like how they did with Soundwave.

So that was why he was watching the other guard enter the code, Megatron thought.

Starscream stepped out with a smile on his face. Megatron did the same, though his body was too broad and he managed to still get shocked a bit.

Now what? They looked at the elevator. A light above it was green, meaning that it was empty already. The three guards must’ve already gotten to the specific floor that they needed and were bringing Soundwave to his new cell. Megatron pressed a button to open the doors, and the two of them stepped in. The buttons inside listed two hundred floors, a floor beneath the ground which must’ve been where they were, and a floor on the roof.

“Are you fragging kidding me?” Megatron grumbled. 

“Hush, I know where to go,” Starscream said, hitting the button that sent them to the roof. They began to ascend.

“You can’t be serious, fool!” Megatron whipped his helm to him. “What the in the damn are we going to do on the roof? You’re the only one who can fly!”

“And you can still turn into a gun!” Starscream bit back. “I’ll just stuff you in my cockpit for the time being.”

“You won’t even know where to go once you start flying me around.”

“Oh, like _you_ do?”

He had him there.

There was still a chance of someone trying to get in the elevator with them, which would result in their unfortunate deaths unless they reacted fast enough to kill whoever caught them. It was a little surprising that there were no sirens going off alerting the guards of their escape. They must have not noticed the short comm. message that the mech they killed tried to send.

Just as Megatron had that thought, the lights began to flash red and sirens began to blast out of loudspeakers in a deafening manner. Damnit. He jinxed it.

Next to him, Starscream began to get a little nervous and fidgety. “They’re going to get in the elevators and we’re going to get caught. We don’t have any weapons except for the blaster you stole from that person you killed.”

Megatron looked down at it. He forgot it was in his hands. “We still have the cuffs around our wrists. We can try and use those.”

“That wouldn’t work—!”

The elevator stopped. Floor 59. Slag. The doors opened to reveal a single Autobot guard who looked very dumbfounded and spooked at the sight of them. Starscream shrieked and hit him in the nose with the heavy cuff still around his servo and slapped the button that closed the doors. The doors closed surprisingly fast. Maybe they were just used to the slowness of the Nemesis.

“‘That wouldn’t work,’ huh?” Megatron repeated smugly. Starscream just rolled his optics and huffed like a child.

“We should’ve taken the stairs. No one uses the stairs because elevators are faster,” Starscream thought aloud.

“We still can if we’re fast enough,” Megatron replied to his thought. Starscream stared at him.

“What the hell do you mean? You just wanna leave on the next floor and make a run for the stairs?” 

Megatron looked at him as though that was exactly what he was thinking of doing. 

With a long and dramatic sigh, Starscream said, “I’m going to kill you after this.” 

“I’ve heard that before.”

They looked up at the floor number. 79. The sirens seemed to be getting louder and the flashing red lights were becoming unbearable. Megatron hit the number 80, and they stopped at the next floor. The doors flew open. He surveyed the area quickly and saw that the stairs were inconveniently across the room. There were also cells with Decepticons contained in them, guards lined up at each individual cell. Some cells missed a guard because they were busy looking for the escapees. They were looking forward because they had been trained to do so, and didn’t look at the open elevator. Some caged ‘Cons were yelling either in victory for their leader’s escape, or in anger for their imprisonment. Others were silent or pacing around in their confined space. It was painful to see them all in captivity.

“Transform,” Starscream whispered at him. Miraculous! He had the capability to lower his voice.

“What?” Megatron questioned in an equally low voice.

“Just trust me!” Starscream’s voice raised to a whisper-shout. Trust Starscream? He would have to be insane to do that! But they were running out of options, and trusting him started to become a bit more reasonable.

Megatron transformed and was caught in the seeker’s hand, who promptly shoved him in his cockpit and transformed, blasting forward to the stairs as fast as he could. The cuffs that clipped his wings together were still around his wings, which slowed him down a little. Guards took notice immediately, and chased after them with startled yells. Some of them immediately went to their comm. to sort others, while more senseless mechs reached for their guns.

“ _This_ was your plan?” Megatron incredulously shouted at Starscream, no longer needing to care about the volume of his voice since they were noticed at this point. “Get to the stairs in the most noticeable way possible?”

“What did you want me to do? Walk over their and wave to each guard that I passed? It was your bright idea to go to the stairs anyway!”

An unfortunate truth. Maybe their severe lack of fuel was getting to the both of them. Megatron was making stupid plans, and Starscream was actually listening to him. What an awful time to be obedient.

The seeker in question was making very skillful and dangerous turns to move up the staircase. It wasn’t a spiral staircase, so he couldn’t just fly right up through the middle. He had to manually go up the stairs, as a jet. Megatron heard a grunt of frustration every once in a while when he turned.

They were being shot at. The guards weren’t fast enough to reach them, so they resorted to injuring them enough to make them stop. Some shots luckily hit the cuffs around Starscream’s wings. Others, not so much. Wherever they were going, they needed to go somewhere where they could repair themselves. Even if all they could do was weld their wounds shut with no antibiotics. The Autobots has been kind enough to repair them to the point where they weren’t at the constant risk of death, but not enough to keep them properly energized. 

It was a smart move on their part, Megatron thought as Starscream began steadily slowing down with each turn. “Try to keep your endurance!”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Starscream retorted. “You’re not the one flying!”

As soon as he finished that sentence, he shot out of the building through the opening on the roof where the stairs led. There were already Autobots on the roof, shooting as soon as they saw them. A few tried to pull them down by grabbing at Starscream’s wings. But they weren’t fast enough. Starscream flew directly up and made a sharp left turn, away from the prison.

There was still shooting and yelling. The air had a smoky smell that wasn’t there before. Sounds of shattering glass and transformation cogs echoed. Before Megatron could mention anything about how an air force would be deployed soon, he heard a sound he didn’t know he missed.

The beautiful, horrendous sound of Starscream’s witch-like, chainsaw-revving, lawnmower cackle. Megatron couldn’t help but chuckle along.

The cackle ceased as soon as it came. Then Starscream asked, “Do you hear it?”

Megatron was curious. Sure, they should be looking for some form of temporary safety, but he couldn’t help but ask. “Hear what?”

“The sound of our impact,” Starscream answered, sounding proud. Then Megatron strained to listen, as they were getting farther away from the prison complex. He heard it now. The glass shattering, the tanks revving, and the Primus-damned music that someone must’ve been playing. The imprisoned Decepticons must’ve managed to break out when all of the guards ran away looking for the two of them. The music sounded like the type that Soundwave liked. Oh, violent bliss.

Their flight seemed almost peaceful in those few seconds. It was quieter.

But they had places to be. “Any ideas for our next move?”

“No,” was all Starscream said, disgruntled at the sudden break in their nice silence.

Megatron took a glance around, still being able to see a little bit in his alt-mode. Some small spacecrafts were taking off, looking like they were built for about three people. The ships were probably either being sent off to look for them or for any Decepticons who managed to fly away.

“Let’s steal a ship,” Megatron suggested like it was a simple task.

Starscream gave a disgusted scoff, but still flew downward to the fleet of dormant ships. Some were taking off. Hopefully it wouldn’t be suspicious to take one.

He landed far enough away so that no one would hear him transform. Then he threw Megatron out of his cockpit carelessly, rolling his eyes at the snarl his leader gave him when he barely managed to transform. Or, was he not his leader anymore? That part was still a little confusing.

“What? Just because we broke out of prison together doesn’t mean I have to be nice to you.”

“You are such a brat.”

To unintentionally prove Megatron’s point, Starscream stuck his tongue out at him.

Megatron refrained from rolling his optics so he would look more mature. Instead, he used his optics to observe the area around them. They were a pretty far from the row of ships, but there were only a few empty watchtowers that they could use to block them from being seen. They could easily be caught if a mech who had good vision just looked over.

“I say we just take our chances,” Starscream began with the worst kind of start known to man, “and take a ship from the back row. If we take too long making up a stupid little plan to hide behind things, all of the ships will be gone and we’ll be sad and probably dead.”

“You make a good point,” Megatron noncommittally mumbled, squinting.

Starscream waited, and then grew annoyed. “Well? Let’s get moving then! I can already tell that you’re trying to think of a plan anyway!”

The little glitch had the audacity to _grab his hand_ and pull him forward with him. Megatron had no choice but to comply, forcefully pulling his hand out of Starscream’s grasp so he could at least pretend he had a smidgen of free will in the matter. The seeker strode ahead of him.

“How do you plan on hijacking this ship, exactly?” Megatron hissed, keeping his voice low as they walked the quarter mile to where the ships resided.

“Well, if no one has been assigned to it yet, then we can force our handprints on it and own it,” Starscream confidently stated.

“And if someone _is_ assigned to it?”

Starscream’s pace faltered. Gotcha. “We’ll corrupt its identification system.”

“Neither of us know how to do that properly!” Megatron voice raised a tad in irritation.

“Shush!” Starscream whisper shouted at him. He turned around to face him so he was walking backwards. “We’ll figure that out! In fact, maybe it would be a good thing if an Autobot’s identity is already locked onto the ship! Then we can lie and pretend we’re not Decepticons so no one will suspect us.”

There was a little bit of promise in that statement, but not enough. If there was a pre-identified owner of whatever ship they stole, they would still need to try and actually get inside the ship somehow. Saying that they could hack into it was one thing, but actually performing the action of hacking was on a whole other level.

Megatron shook his head to shake away any worry and took in his surroundings. They were much closer to the fleet than they realized. “Starscream, turn around!”

“Wha—“

He walked right into a ship. The metal clack of his wings against the wall of the ship was unhelpfully loud. Starscream let out a frustrated noise and spun around, facing the object he’d walked into.

The ships were... smaller than they thought. Big enough for two people at most. But that was taking into account that the two mechs who would be in the ship could actually stand each other’s company and wouldn’t be at one another’s throats an hour into their ride. Joy. Starscream made some grumbly, nitpicky comment complaining about the ship’s color. It was a golden yellow. He really hated the color yellow, even if it was the same as his cockpit.

The door also happened to be on the other side, they noticed. Wondrous.

“Transform,” Starscream commanded of him. Before Megatron could say ‘what,’ he interrupted. “You’re too big and recognizable. You won’t be able to sneak around this thing at all.”

“You don’t blend into a crowd all that well either, you know,” Megatron grumbled at him. Still, he transformed. Better for Starscream to have a weakly fueled weapon than nothing, should they be found and caught. He was promptly shoved into his cockpit.

Starscream slowly walked around the rear end of the ship, trying his damndest to make as little noise as possible with every step. He had to walk on the tips of his pedes to cease the clacking of his heels. He peeked around the corner to see if there was anyone there. No one. Starscream then straightened his posture and made the turn towards the other side, where the door was. 

He brought his servo to his mouth, contemplative. There was a pad next to the door with the outline of a servo on it. There was also a little box with a black screen right under it with an ‘E’ on the side. Energon, possibly?

“Nothing here says whether or not it’s registered to anyone,” Starscream mumbled to himself, unsure.

Then he heard a loud, monotone voice come from the ship right behind him. 

“Registration activated. Please enter your energon.” A voice grumbled about the loudness of the thing.

Well, frag all. Starscream pressed his servo to the pad. It scanned it. Then the voice sounded again, repeating the same thing he had just heard. So none of the ships were registered. How wonderfully convenient! It made sense. The Autobots always had a surplus of unregistered flying vehicles due to their lack of actual flying mechs.

Starscream used one of his talons of his one hand to cut open a bleeding wound in the other. He bit his lip to repress a hiss and pressed his hand onto the little black screen, smearing it with his blood. He pulled his servo back and waited for some kind of sign of anything good.

The same voice listed his creation ID and the door slid open smoothly, extending a small staircase to reach the entrance. Giddy as all hell, Starscream ran up, skipping a few steps, and entered the ship. The same handprint-scanner and energon box were on the inside. Starscream smeared his blood on that box, too. The door closed.

He opened up his cockpit and threw Megatron out excitedly.

Megatron was slightly irritated with the fact that he kept getting tossed about, but still found himself smiling slightly. They were almost in the clear. Starscream opened his mouth, a big smile on his face.

“Don’t scream for joy yet, fool,” Megatron stopped him, holding up his hand. “We’re still in earshot. These walls might not be thick.”

Surprisingly obedient, Starscream closed his mouth, rocking back and forth on his pedes. Megatron looked to his left, seeing a main console that most likely commanded the ship. A big, clear windshield was in the front of it. They both walked towards it together. There was an intimidating amount of buttons on the console and a wheel that would be moved with two joysticks. There was also a gearstick that probably turned the engine on. Megatron moved it forward and heard the _fwoom_ of the thrusters turning on.

Starscream grabbed the wheel part and tilted the ship upward. They steadily began to leave the ground, narrowly missing a few ships in front of them. That probably looked suspicious, but they didn’t care.

Megatron looked at Starscream with a cocky grin on his faceplates. “Ready?”

“Hurry it up already!”

Megatron obeyed and moved the gearstick to its highest setting and they blasted off with so much force that it threw them back a little. Starscream let out a shriek of surprise mixed with joy. Megatron laughed, booming.

They were golden for the moment.

~

“Have you figured out how to let it register me yet?” Megatron asked, bored and devoid of the joy he had felt those six days ago.

“No,” Starscream replied, sharp and irritated. He slapped the console and turned to face him, leaning back in his swivel chair. “We’re going to start running low on fuel.”

They hadn’t gotten a good recharge either. They never even explored the whole ship, too busy figuring out what they were supposed to do next. Megatron had been sleeping at the dinky little cafeteria-esque table. It was uncomfortable and his back ached. Starscream had been in the commander’s chair the whole time, barely ever leaving the spot.

“I suppose we’ll have to make a list of supplies,” Megatron muttered, swishing around what little was left in his cube.

“Whatever,” Starscream grunted, already annoyed with him despite nothing happening. He tilted his helm back and angrily closed his eyes to try and recharge a bit more. He’d been a lot more irritable as of late. It made sense. There wasn’t a lot of fuel on the ship, so they were having even less rations than they would back on the Nemesis.

Oh, Nemesis. Megatron missed that ship. He started to understand why Starscream hated the bright yellow of their small ship so much. Sure, having a whole ship in dark purple wasn’t the most fashionable of choices, but at least it didn’t stand out as much in the dark expanse of space.

He checked his chronometer, despite it being pretty much useless with their current situation. It listed a number that was an ungodly late time at night.

Sighing, Megatron pushed his cube to the side and rested his head on his crossed arms, which were placed on the table. His back hurt as he leaned over, but that was the least of his concerns. He closed his eyes, trying to force himself asleep.

They were so, so far from being golden.


End file.
